We are delighted that you could join us today for a rollout of the new report that we have done on afghanistan and forward. As we were thinking about the president ial transition we thought it was important to put together some papers for the next president before we knew who the president would be. Really recommended what would protect and vent American Interest in any number of topics. It scenes that afghanistan is a war that continues 16 years on that this is a critical area where a new administration would have to grapple with us strategy, objectives and a way forward for the campaign. So we commissioned a senior fellow here to lead the development of the report. He is not president and ceo of strategic leadership group. He is also a former military officer four times in afghanistan. Once commanding an airborne Infantry Task force. And pioneered deed as has been written up in many case studies and books as a model for how they can be effective. He then went on to be a Senior Advisor for several generals. And i was fortunate to have him as my Senior Advisor when i was secretary of the fence on that. So he was the right person for us commissioned to write this report. And within weeks we hope that he will be in nearly phd from Kings College as well. Thank you for coming quest. Joining is also his ambassador ron newman. He is formally Deputy Assistant secretary of state. But also threetime ambassador. Very Senior Foreign Service officer with many sort of kudos, he was ambassador out of syria, iran and finally afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. He has also served in iraq on the Coalition Provisional authority and the political military multinational command. He has been at the nexus of policy, politics and military operations on several occasions. He is also a wellknown author. Writing the other war, winning and losing afghanistan which came out in 2009. He is a frequent commentator and a tremendous resource. I remember when i was undersecretary anytime i wanted to understand, i was having a hard time understanding something about afghanistan and i was one of the first people a he was one of the first people we would reach out to. So we are going to start the Panel Discussion today with giving chris a few minutes upfront to summarize the report and his recommendations. We then turn to ambassador newman commentary and we will the back and forth on the discussion for a while and then we will open up to your questions and comments. So, chris. Thank you very much. Becky everybody for coming. I cant thank michelle enough for giving me the opportunity to continue serving in afghanistan when i was finished my tour as a commander. I called at the pentagon or the personnel people and said, i would really like to keep working on afghanistan in washington d. C. And they said well, you can log on in afghanistan but not in washington d. C. We can go to washington d. C. But you cant work on afghanistan. So i was stuck in the army staff. And when the Obama Administration was coming in and michelle was getting on board as the under secretary of defense for policy. I got directed to go down and brief michelle about afghanistan. And i did. And after the conversation she said what are you doing now . And i said working in the army staff. Is that we want to be working . No, i would actually rather be working with afghanistan. And then i got a phone call saying you are working for me now and were going to do a new strategy review for afghanistan and pakistan and i would like you to help me out with that. So that was a tremendous experience in them being able to work with you, the years following has just been absolutely delightful and i appreciate your leadership and your support. I also want to think for their support through this process particularly sean brimley. Paul, lauren, neil, jarrell and kevin, my Research Assistants on this. Thank you all very much. Ron thank you for being here today for all of your support during this process. We are also going to have ambassador Jim Cunningham here but he was at a lastminute family emergency so unfortunately he could not make it. I also want to thank the working group, they are listed in the report but they provided a tremendous amount of support, challenged all of my ideas and made this whole process better. So in terms of the report, i am a true believer in afghanistan. Im a true believer in the people of afghanistan and a true believer in the future of afghanistan. But i also know that we are not going to get there from here. And the situation has evolved and developed such that without a significant change in strategy, were going to continue to have problems in afghanistan that are just going to make the situation worse. Overall the situation in afghanistan is an unstable stalemate. What i mean by that is, it is a stalemate in the sense that neither side is likely to win outright. As long as they continue to enjoy external support. It is unstable in the sense that the taliban continues to making battlefield gains. And as long as they continue making battlefield gains, they are going to continue the military campaign. It is just that simple. In terms of the taliban, they are a sustainable insurgence. What i mean by sustainable insurgency is that they have got durable support inside afghanistan so they can continue building fighters. And supportive spirit and have external sanctuary in pakistan and donor support from the gulf. The Afghan Government meanwhile these two situations and insurgency with sustainable support and host nation government that is unable to take territory from an insurgency. Means that the likelihood of a clear outright win for the government statistically is about zero. In fact, since the Second World War they ran some interesting studies on this. An insurgency that has sustainable support that i spoke about. Has been successful every single time. That doesnt mean that they overthrow the government but in a negotiated, they may overthrow the government. But in eight negotiated outcome they tend to be better than the government. Conversely, a government that has been unable to essentially win the battle of legitimacy and insurgent control and contested areas has been unsuccessful every time. It doesnt mean that they were overthrown, they might be, or in a negotiated outcome they have had to give more than they have gotten. And that is also the case even with significant amounts of external support. So in terms of that is what i mean by an unstable stalemate. And in terms of the likelihood of an outright government when, at this point it is very unlikely. As it is an outright taliban win. Just to briefly talk about the taliban and the Afghan Government, some of the protagonists. The taliban is an insurgent group. And who aims to eventually govern afghanistan. And they will use a variety of means as an insurgency to gain control of territory, people and contest others. They will certainly use military attacks. They will use shadow governments, terrorist tactics, assassination, intimidation, propaganda, the whole range of what insurgencies generally use. They have got sanctuary in pakistan that is not likely to go away anytime soon. They have made, started to make inroads among groups which are actually significant for them. Their ties to al qaeda were difficult after september 11 and for many years beyond that. They have been improving recently. They fight however, with Islamic State awhich is the affiliate and afghanistan. They are internally fractious movement. They have many different fractions. Although those different fractions are very loyal to the taliban. Or to the taliban sort of identity. So there has often been an aspiration to maybe fragment the taliban and get back to defect and that continues to be unlikely. Their decisionmaking is actually very slow. They tend to run decisions kind of like the traditional where everybody has got to veto. Sort of at the un security council. So, as long as there are people among their inner circle that believe the military campaign ought to continue, and since that is a status quo that is probably what it will produce. There is a huge status quo bias within the organization and it will take some time, and very conditions than what they face now, before they make significant changes strategy. With respect to the Afghan Government, sadly, under the Karzai Administration they have been through a plutocracy which has damaged their legitimacy and different areas. It doesnt mean all government officials are not right, certainly not. I know a lot of government officials that are just absolute patriots. But, there are too many that are engaged in this and it creates all negativity that is damaging the governments ability to get the support of the population. They still have the challenges. Both the president and chief executive, both want to reform the system. Both recognize the system needs to be for reform but their vision for reform are very different. Which makes that reform process a real challenge. An even more challenging than just the disagreements on the fact that they are very powerful warlords who have so much invested in this kleptocracy that they will prevent, actively undermine any efforts to reform the system. And it for many of them they are also willing to threaten violence to protect this sort of reform and this makes this reform political reform, a very highstakes process. Unfortunately, too many of the army and police have been in this which undermines their ability to fight and win on the battlefield. And certainly there are a lot of commanders who are doing the right thing and when Afghan Forces are well led, they tend to fight very well. I have fought alongside event and ive seen what happens when forces are well led. They tend to fight very very well, very very driven. A lot of Afghan Forces are doing that. Too many however, are poorly led. When not led well enough and have commanders and others who may be compromised in their incentives. And so this is creating problems on the battlefield. Which are helping the taliban sustain. There is also an afghan strategy for the war. Which i find remarkable after 15 years. We have never had a common strategy for how we bring this war to a successful conclusion. And that has resulted in the United States and afghan partners tending to move off in different directions. With respect to the region, afghanistan lives in a very tough neighborhood. And they have a lot of predatory neighbors. Pakistan is of course predatory neighbor exhibit a. They provided sanctuary to the taliban. Plenty of donors provide funding to the taliban. The relationship with the telephone is not necessarily puppet master but more of what some call where if the taliban were left to their own devices will continuing doing what pakistan wanted to do. Which is destabilize afghanistan. But when they get out of line, pakistan will indeed crackdown. The pakistanis do this in many ways out of fear that afghanistan will become a state of india. And if it is a client state of india, then the indians and the afghans will team up to essentially dismantle pakistan. And so, the closer that afghanistan gets with india, the more nervous pakistan gets, the more nervous they get the more they allow the insurgency to provide support that which then brings afghanistan closer and get this very damaging, very destructive cycle. In which for pakistan, they will prefer afghanistan to be a client state. They fear afghanistan will be indias client state and so what they, if they cannot have one, and they want to prevent the other, then they aim for an unstable afghanistan because in their logic, and unstable afghanistan is not able to inflict the harm that they would expect to stabilize afghanistan. The United States of course as designated pakistan a major nonnato ally. And in aiding assistance the nicest gives 742. 2 million per year to pakistan. With respect to india, they prefer that, to keep pakistan boxed in. They certainly do not want afghanistan to become a client state of india. They many historic relations with afghans and afghan elites. They also recognize that there tends to be an inverse proportional, an inverse relationship between violence in afghanistan and violence in kashmir. When violence and afghanistan goes up violence and cashmere tends to go down and vice versa. And that is certainly not lost on india. I ran, and i will stop this is the third reason i will address. Also view western afghanistan as part of them. They tend to look afghanistan through the lens of that conflict with saudi arabia. Hearing that if a propakistani group gets control of afghanistan, then that will be used as a lever by saudi arabia to undermined iran. So all of these conference are affecting the National Conflict within afghanistan. For the United States of course, we have had our own challenges. And we are certainly, can be our own worst enemy at times. Since the beginning of the war we have tended to super mpower various elites and warlords which has been very damaging. In fact, at times when the president in the early years went to us asking us to back him in working against the warlords, we tended to say no. I know it is part of the reason why the kleptocracy evolved. We have also had inflicted civilian casualties which has been very damaging with our relationship with afghanistan, the legitimacy with the International Mission and to the patients of the afghan public. Weve often frustrated afghanistan with our policies. I was in in october. And i noticed that the two countries were like way, the most unpopular from the perspective of the audience. The two must unpopular countries were pakistan of course going away and the second most unpopular country for people was the United States. And they view some of our policies, for instance with the National Unity government or policy with pakistan was to in particular as being damaging for them. And some afghans even actively wonder whether the United States really wants peace in afghanistan or if were just sort of stirring the pot to justify a troop presence. And certainly that is not a healthy situation for the relationship. Part of the reason why these problems have been and continue to happen is we tend to operate bureaucratic silos. Within afghanistan. So defense doesnt stay the intelligence immunities tend to do its own thing and no one is really in charge of this full range of american efforts on the ground. And so what happens is you get seams or gaps between the silos that people can exploit. And you get friction points where efforts in one silo can damage efforts in another silo. And weve seen that over the past 16 years repeat itself. Bottom line is the taliban gaining ground. The Afghan Government not being able to regain their initiative. Your predatory actors within the region that are creating instability and a lack of mission and strategy. What we were done in 2011 and 2013, not only failed but very damaging the eyes of many afghans. And the United States policy had been way too sluggish and way too bureaucratic. So what do we do with all of that . We looked at three options. Option a is withdraw. Keep funding afghanistan and try to manage the risks of International Terrorist groups coming back to afghanistan. Option b was an openended commitment. Keep 84 trips there and a8400 troops there and as Jim Cunningham put it put it on autopilot. And that includes managing the policy from the white house in washington d. C. And then option c is an openended commitment. It is simply unrealistic. It is based on the fact that a negotiated outcome is probably the most realistic way to gain a favorable and durable result in this war. So we have got to make, with the figure how to make this right for negotiations. It was the Afghan Nation has advantage. And then, and they need to be building the foundations of the Peace Process. And not just a deal with people get around the table and try to hammer out a deal in three days. But a process that will probably take 10 to 15 years or longer. Afghanistan has been at work for nearly 40 years now. There is a lot of tensions and issues wrapped up in whatever Peace Process might unfold. As we laid out three conditions for how we set the conditions to bring a negotiated outcome about in which the Afghan Government has the advantage and we expect the sacrifices and service of both Afghan Soldiers as well as americans. So we laid out three objectives. First we have to stabilize. That means that we need to stabilize our troop presence and essentially say were going to be there at this level or an enhanced level. As long as the Afghan Government wants us. So get rid of the withdrawal timelines. We are going to stay there as long as the Afghan Government and people want us to be there. At the same time, weve got to get developing a Us Afghanistan policy. Get everyone on the same sheet of music. And we have to apply, we be better at applying assistance. I think we can get more of that. Second objective is promoting afghan sovereignty while reducing destabilizing regional competition. So weve been trying for a long time to essentially finesse everybodys interest. Try to find that sweet spot where the interest of all afghans and as well as all the region, pakistan, india, iran etc. Can all be met. We have the conclusion that sweet spot probably just does not exist. So a way around that is afghanistan essentially declares themselves to be a neutral power. Backed by the United States and regional then you have got to have a proces